Injury Index
by HecateA
Summary: In which Remus and Tonks discuss the pros and cons of keeping the light on.


**Author's Note: **As this is the first M rated fic on this account. Hurrah! Please mind the warnings. Other than that, this scene is probably based in July/August of the year Order of the Phoenix happens. As far as I'm concerned, it's canon, and as you can see, I'm in a right sappy mood. So enjoy!

**Disclaimer: **The following characters belong to J.K. Rowling, and this story derives from her original works, storylines, and world. Please do not sue me, I can barely pay tuition.

**Warnings: **Descriptions of injuries and scars, nudity, sort of smutty.

**Beta: **Aya

* * *

**Stacked with: **MC4A; Terms of Services; Shipping War; Citrius Mundra

**Individual Challenge(s): **Gryffindor MC; Hufflepuff MC; Short Jog (Y); Seeds

**Representation(s): **Auror Tonks

**Bonus challenge(s): **Middle Name; Second Verse (Ladylike); Chorus (Odd Feathers; Machismo); Navigate

**Tertiary bonus challenge: **NA

**List (Prompt): **50 Ways to Kiss (21—on a place of insecurity)

**Word Count: **1406

* * *

_**Shipping Wars**_

**Ship (Team): **Nymphadora Tonks and Remus Lupin (Technicolour Moon)

**List (Prompt): **Big List (Hugging)

* * *

**The Injury Index**

One of his hands was sliding up her leg while the other reached for his wand.

"No," Dora said, taking his wrist. Remus backed off, propping himself up on his arm next to her.

"Is everything..?"

"Yes, you're a bloody good kisser and you were about to do the other thing you're really good at, and I really wish we hadn't stopped," she said, sitting up and twisting to face him. "But why are you reaching to turn the lights off?"

Remus didn't have a good answer for that beyond chewing on his lip.

"Every time," Dora said. "You do it every time we end up here. Haven't we done this enough?"

"Well—yes, I suppose we have, I just…" Remus chewed his lip more. "Dora, I don't think you've ever… seen how bad…"

"How bad what?" she asked.

"You've never seen quite how bad I… well, look," he said.

She looked at him and he could see the confusion in her eyes. Slowly she arched an eyebrow.

"I've never seen you without your shirt on," she said. "Is that the problem?"

"It sounds silly when you say it like that," he said.

"I'm not trying to say it like anything," Dora said. "I just… You know I'm handsy. I've felt some old injuries and scar tissue…"

"It's worse when you see it," Remus said. "I mean, I know we're not here because you're looking for a _Witch Weekly_ award-winning physique or anything…"

"Oh, come off it," Dora said. "Always the self-deprecation with you."

"Dora, it's bad," he said.

"Okay."

She reached down to grab the hem of an old Hufflepuff Quidditch shirt she routinely wore under her Auror robes and yanked it up unceremoniously. With a wave of her head, she shrunk her hair to clear her shoulders, and then tilted her head to the side. With her index, she traced a scar that ran from behind her ear down to her armpit.

"This one's a training accident from work—Hestia gave it to me, actually, cried for days and bought me lunch for about a week, she felt so bad… This on my stomach's from when I was twelve and my grandparents were babysitting me for a week. I got appendicitis and they took me to a Muggle hospital so I had what they call a surgery. This bite mark here is from a three-headed dog, actually—a puppy, mind you, but the biggest of the heads got me. These are boring old stretch marks from all the morphing. I could probably get rid of them if I wanted but they just pop up again and again."

She turned around.

"Burn marks on my back are from an early job—I spent two weeks tailing a wizard trying to weaponize Fiendfyre, and let's just say he was _not _happy to be caught."

She reached back and unclasped her bra, a peachy orange one familiar enough he could assume it was a favourite, turning around to show him the scar that stretched down across her left breast. She cupped and lifted it so show him the extent of the mark.

"Stabbed," she said. "Squib trying to find a way to take away wizards' magic—a sad story, really, but it was harder to feel sorry for him after he did that. It was a fucking deep one, too… and I think that's it, unless you want to see some chickenpox scars. That's it for up here, anyways."

Remus didn't react for a bit.

"Look, I know these are inherently different," she said. "But I'm not a fan of these, either."

"You could morph them away," Remus said.

"Yes, and I do when I'm undercover," she said. "But when I'm me, these are part of the package. I'm… I learned a long time ago that hiding the parts of me I don't like means I hide the good bits too. I'm not saying it'll be the same for you, I'm just… I'm telling you where I stand. That I don't mind."

She reached out and he took her hands. Remus traced his fingertips against the lines crisscrossing the palms of her hands. His were calloused and worn, but dueling had toughened hers up too. Not in quite the same way, but enough that he thought that… well, if someone was to understand…

He slid out of bed and pulled off his shirt , nearly stopping once but seizing that Gryffindor courage he supposedly had to keep going. Awkwardly, he folded it twice before dropping it onto the floor.

"My…" he chewed his lip. He had no idea where to even _start. _He had no idea how long going through his index of injuries would even take.

"I had a really bad night when I was thirteen, dislocated my shoulder and broke my arm, and every few months it breaks again. Never managed to heal quite right, so it makes this… this popping sound. The scars on the shoulder here, I—well, of course I don't _quite _know where any of these are from, but I suspect that Buckbeak gave me these, based on the claw shape. It's a long story."

Dora nodded, and it was as if she'd flipped a switch because he went through the list.

He'd been fourteen for this one, twelve when that one had appeared.

"This one's not from being a werewolf at all," he said, looking to his left forearm. "I fell off the swings at the park when I was four and cut myself on the chain. It's silly, but it fits in with the rest."

These were bite marks he'd given himself when he'd had nobody else to turn on. Claw marks, scratches, unidentifiable marks. Bruises from the last moon, even.

He'd moved up to his face now—Sirius had given him this one when he'd slipped and transformed at Hogwarts, that one across his eye he'd given himself and Madam Pomfrey had spent hours to save his eye, he'd broken his jaw three years ago and assumed that that particular scratch came from the same incident, the top of his ear had nearly been cut off another time…

She nodded along, and he could see the careful and methodical side of her—the part of her that memorized Auror protocols and Wizarding laws and case file after case file—take it all in.

So finally, he turned around.

"My back's the worst," he said quietly. "I really… These are all myself, I think. Except for my shoulder. That's my first wound, the one that made me… It's Greyback's work. I was four, and it grew with me somehow—magical injuries are strange. But the tissue has always… it's always looked awful, no matter what we did."

He was thankful that if he'd been bitten, at least the source injury was on his back. He didn't have ample opportunities to see it. He just _knew _that it was there: an ugly, tight patch of knotted white scar tissue that threw his shoulder out of proportions. He had no need to mince his words. He knew what it was. Now she did, too.

He heard Dora get up, and then her arms wrapped around his waist. He felt her rest her head against his back, her body pressed against his, and she took a deep breath which warmed his skin. He felt her lips against his back, gently outlining the injuries that criss-crossed and patchworked the skin.

"Is this okay?"

"Yes," he said, surprised at how quickly the answer came.

She kept going. Her hands splayed against his stomach, and his own clumsily found their way to rest on hers. They stood there for quite some time. Remus could have spent another eternity like it, too.

"Hi," he said quietly.

"Hi," she said again. "It's nice to meet you, Remus Lupin. I like you, so you can call me Dora."

He smiled.

"Polite introductions usually involve more clothes."

"If anything, I'm an advocate for less," Dora said. Her hands dropped down and her thumbs slipped into the belt loops of his pants. She tugged playfully. "Politeness was always overrated."

"You're… okay with this," Remus said.

"Of course I am," Dora said. "Remus, I like _you. _There are no terms and conditions to that. Though if you want to show me the lower half…"

Remus laughed and brought her hand to his lip. Not for long though; it had a mind of its own and an agenda he approved of quite heartily.


End file.
